A vertical service code (VSC) is a sequence of digits and the signals star (*) and number sign (#) dialed on a telephone keypad or rotary dial to enable or disable certain telephony service features.[1] Some vertical service codes require dialing of a telephone number after the code sequence. On a touch tone telephone, the codes are usually initiated with the star key, resulting in the commonly used name star codes. On rotary dial telephones, the star is replaced by dialing 11.

In North Americantelephony, VSCs were developed by AT&T Corp. as Custom Local Area Signaling Services (CLASS or LASS) codes in the 1960s and 70s. Their use became ubiquitous throughout the 1990s and eventually became a recognized standard. As CLASS was an AT&T trademark, the term vertical service code was adopted by the North American Numbering Plan Administration. The use of vertical is a somewhat dated reference to older switching methods and the fact that these services can only be accessed by a local telephone subscriber, going up (vertically) inside the local central office instead of out (horizontally) to another telephone company.

1.
Asterisk
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An asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star, computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as star. In English, an asterisk is usually five-pointed in sans-serif typefaces, six-pointed in serif typefaces and it can be used as censorship. It is also used on the Internet to correct ones spelling, the asterisk is derived from the need of the printers of family trees in feudal times for a symbol to indicate date of birth. The original shape was seven-armed, each arm like a shooting from the center. In computer science, the asterisk is used as a wildcard character, or to denote pointers, repetition. Origin Adamantius is known to have used the asteriskos to mark missing Hebrew lines from his Hexapla. The asterisk evolved in shape over time, but its meaning as a used to correct defects remained. In the Middle Ages, the asterisk was used to emphasize a part of text. However, an asterisk was not always used, one hypothesis to the origin of the asterisk is that it stems from the five thousand year old Sumerian character dingir,

2.
Telephone keypad
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A telephone keypad is the keypad installed on a push-button telephone or similar telecommunication device for the primary purpose of dialing a telephone number. The contemporary keypad is laid out in an array of twelve push buttons arranged as four rows. For military applications, a fourth, right-most column of keys was added for priority signaling in the Autovon system in the 1960s. These keys were added to provide signals for anticipated data entry purposes in business applications, the layout of the digit keys is different from that commonly appearing on calculators and numeric keypads. This layout was chosen after extensive human factors testing at Bell Labs, at the time, mechanical calculators were not widespread, and few people had experience with them. Indeed, calculators were only just starting to settle on a common layout, two other calculators have keysets resembling. In any case, Bell Labs testing found that the layout with 1,2. The key labeled ✻ was officially named the star key, the original design used a symbol with six points, but an asterisk with five points commonly appears in printing. # is officially called the sign key, but other names such as pound key, hash key, hex key, octothorpe, gate. The Greek symbols alpha and omega had been planned originally and these can be used for special functions. For example, in the UK, users can order a 7,30 am alarm call from a British Telecom telephone exchange by dialing, most of the keys also bear letters according to the following system, These letters have been used for multiple purposes. Originally, they referred to the letters of telephone exchange names. The UK telephone numbering system used a similar two-letter code after the zero to form the first part of the subscriber trunk dialling code for a region. For example, Aylesbury was assigned 0AY6, which translated into 0296, the letters have also been used, mainly in the United States, as a technique for remembering telephone numbers easily. For example, an interior decorator might license the telephone number 1-800-724-6837, sometimes businesses advertise a number with a mnemonic word having more letters than there are digits in the phone number. Usually, this means that the caller just stops dialing at 7 digits after the code or that the extra digits are ignored by the central office. On modern mobile phones and smart phones, the letters on the keys are needed for entering text for text messaging, entering names in the book, mobile apps, mobile browser. To compensate for the keys, mobile phones use systems like multi-tap

3.
Telephone number
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A telephone number serves as an address for switching telephone calls using a system of destination code routing. Telephone numbers are entered or dialed by a party on the originating telephone set. The exchange completes the call either to another locally connected subscriber or via the PSTN to the called party, telephone numbers were first used in 1879 in Lowell, Massachusetts when they replaced the request for subscriber names by callers connecting to the switchboard operator. Telephone numbers are dialed in conjunction with other signaling code sequences, such as vertical service codes. When telephone numbers were first used they were short, from one to three digits, and were communicated orally to a switchboard operator when initiating a call. As telephone systems have grown and interconnected to encompass worldwide communication, in addition to telephones, they have been used to access other devices, such as computer modems, pagers, and fax machines. The number contains the necessary to identify uniquely the intended endpoint for the telephone call. Each such endpoint must have a number within the public switched telephone network. Most countries use fixed length numbers and therefore the number of endpoints determines the length of the telephone number. It is also possible for each subscriber to have a set of numbers for the endpoints most often used. These shorthand or speed calling numbers are translated to unique telephone numbers before the call can be connected. Some special services have their own short numbers The dialing plan in some areas permits dialing numbers in the local calling area without using area code or city code prefixes. For example, a number in North America consists of a three-digit area code, a three-digit central office code. If the area has no area code overlays, seven-digit dialing may be permissible for calls within the area, for each large metro area, all of these lines will share the same prefix, the last digits typically corresponding to the stations frequency, callsign, or moniker. In the international network, the format of telephone numbers is standardized by ITU-T recommendation E.164. This code specifies that the number should be 15 digits or shorter. For most countries, this is followed by a code or city code and the subscriber number. ITU-T recommendation E.123 describes how to represent an international telephone number in writing or print, starting with a plus sign and the country code

4.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands

5.
AT&T Corporation
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Founded in 1885 as the original American Telephone and Telegraph Company, it was at times the worlds largest telephone company, the worlds largest cable television operator, and a regulated monopoly. At its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, it employed one million people, in 2005, AT&T was purchased by Baby Bell and former subsidiary SBC Communications for more than $16 billion. SBC then changed its name to AT&T Inc, AT&T started with Bell Patent Association, a legal entity established in 1874 to protect the patent rights of Alexander Graham Bell after he invented the telephone system. Originally a verbal agreement, it was formalized in writing in 1875 as Bell Telephone Company, in 1880 the management of American Bell had created what would become AT&T Long Lines. The project was the first of its kind to create a nationwide long-distance network with a commercially viable cost-structure, the project was formally incorporated in New York State as a separate company named American Telephone and Telegraph Company on March 3,1885. With this assets transfer, AT&T became the parent of both American Bell and the Bell System. AT&T was involved mainly in the business and, although it was a partner with RCA, was reluctant to see radio grow because such growth might diminish the demand for wired services. It established station WEAF in New York as what was termed a toll station, AT&T could provide no programming, but anyone who wished to broadcast a message could pay a toll to AT&T and then air the message publicly. The original studio was the size of a telephone booth, the idea, however, did not take hold, because people would pay to broadcast messages only if they were sure that someone was listening. As a result, WEAF began broadcasting entertainment material, drawing amateur talent found among its employees, throughout most of the 20th century, AT&T held a monopoly on phone service in the United States and Canada through a network of companies called the Bell System. At this time, the company was nicknamed Ma Bell, on April 30,1907, Theodore Newton Vail became President of AT&T. Vail believed in the superiority of one system and AT&T adopted the slogan One Policy, One System. This would be the philosophy for the next 70 years. Under Vail, AT&T began buying up many of the telephone companies including Western Union telegraph. Anxious to avoid action from government antitrust suits, AT&T and the government entered into an agreement known as the Kingsbury Commitment. These actions brought unwanted attention from antitrust regulators, in the Kingsbury Commitment, AT&T and the government reached an agreement that allowed AT&T to continue operating as a monopoly. While AT&T periodically faced scrutiny from regulators, this state of affairs continued until the breakup in 1984. The United States Justice Department opened the case United States v. AT&T in 1974 and this was prompted by suspicion that AT&T was using monopoly profits from its Western Electric subsidiary to subsidize the cost of its network, a violation of anti-trust law

6.
Telephone exchange
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A telephone exchange is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network or in large enterprises. In historical perspective, telecommunication terms have been used with different semantics over time, the term telephone exchange is often used synonymously with central office, a Bell System term. Often, an office is defined as a building used to house the inside plant equipment of potentially several telephone exchanges. Such an area has also referred to as the exchange. Central office locations may also be identified in North America as wire centers, All central offices within a larger region, typically aggregated by state, were assigned a common numbering plan area code. For corporate or enterprise use, a telephone exchange is often referred to as a private branch exchange. Smaller installations might deploy a PBX or key telephone system in the office of a receptionist and this made it possible for subscribers to call each other at homes, businesses, or public spaces. These made telephony an available and comfortable communication tool for everyday use, one of the first to propose a telephone exchange was Hungarian Tivadar Puskás in 1877 while he was working for Thomas Edison. The first experimental telephone exchange was based on the ideas of Puskás, the worlds first commercial telephone exchange opened on November 12,1877 in Friedrichsberg close to Berlin. George W. Coy designed and built the first commercial US telephone exchange opened in New Haven. The switchboard was built from carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire, Charles Glidden is also credited with establishing an exchange in Lowell, MA. with 50 subscribers in 1878. In Europe other early telephone exchanges were based in London and Manchester, Belgium had its first International Bell exchange a year later. In 1887 Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard, later exchanges consisted of one to several hundred plug boards staffed by switchboard operators. Each operator sat in front of a panel containing banks of ¼-inch tip-ring-sleeve jacks. In front of the jack panel lay a horizontal panel containing two rows of patch cords, each connected to a cord circuit. When a calling party lifted the receiver, the loop current lit a signal lamp near the jack. The operator responded by inserting the rear cord into the jack and switched her headset into the circuit to ask, Number. For a local call, the operator inserted the front cord of the pair into the partys local jack

7.
Mobile phone
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A mobile phone is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the systems of a mobile phone operator. Most modern mobile telephone services use a network architecture, and, therefore. Mobile phones which offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones, the first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing c.4.4 lbs. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available mobile phone. From 1983 to 2014, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew to seven billion, penetrating 100% of the global population. In first quarter of 2016, the top smartphone manufacturers were Samsung, Apple, a handheld mobile radio telephone service was envisioned in the early stages of radio engineering. In 1917, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt filed a patent for a pocket-size folding telephone with a thin carbon microphone. Early predecessors of cellular phones included analog radio communications from ships, the race to create truly portable telephone devices began after World War II, with developments taking place in many countries. These 0G systems were not cellular, supported few simultaneous calls, the first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing c.4.4 lbs. The first commercial automated cellular network was launched in Japan by Nippon Telegraph and this was followed in 1981 by the simultaneous launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone system in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Several other countries followed in the early to mid-1980s. These first-generation systems could support far more simultaneous calls but still used analog cellular technology, in 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. In 1991, the digital cellular technology was launched in Finland by Radiolinja on the GSM standard. This sparked competition in the sector as the new operators challenged the incumbent 1G network operators, ten years later, in 2001, the third generation was launched in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard. This was followed by 3. 5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G enhancements based on the high-speed packet access family, allowing UMTS networks to have data transfer speeds. By 2009, it had become clear that, at point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by the growth of bandwidth-intensive applications. Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized fourth-generation technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to ten-fold over existing 3G technologies

8.
Landline
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A landline telephone refers to a phone that uses a metal wire or fibre optic telephone line for transmission as distinguished from a mobile cellular line, which uses radio waves for transmission. In 2003, the CIA reported approximately 1.263 billion main telephone lines worldwide, china had more than any other country at 350 million and the United States was second with 268 million. The United Kingdom has 23.7 million residential fixed homephones, the 2013 statistics show that the total number of fixed-telephone subscribers in the world was about 1.16 billion. The number of landline subscribers continuously decreases due to upgrades in digital technology, a fixed phone line can be hard-wired or cordless and typically refers to the operation of wireless devices or systems in fixed locations such as homes. Fixed wireless devices usually derive their power from the utility mains electricity, unlike mobile wireless or portable wireless. Although mobile and portable systems can be used in fixed locations, efficiency, mobile or portable, battery-powered wireless systems can be used as emergency backups for fixed systems in case of a power blackout or natural disaster. So-called leased lines are invariably of the type, the implications of a land line in this context are security and survivability. For example, a military headquarters might be linked to units by landline to ensure that communication remains possible even if the conventional telephone network is damaged or destroyed. Another example of this is in airports, all air traffic control towers have dedicated lines connected to the police, fire department, hospitals, army, etc. Deployed as a precaution in case of emergency, these can be used at any time, in many countries the landline has not been readily available to most people. In some countries in Africa, the rise in cell phones has outpaced any rise in landline telephones, between 1998 and 2008, Africa added only 2.4 million landlines. However, during this time the number of mobile phone lines that have been subscribed to has skyrocketed. Between 2000 and 2008, cell phone use has risen from less than 2 in 100 people to 33 out of 100. In developing countries it is difficult to install landline copper that is accessible to everyone than it is to install mobile wireless towers that people can connect to from anywhere. In the early 21st century, the telephone has declined due to the advancement of mobile network technology. Some see this happening as soon as the year 2025, in 2004, only about 45% of people in the United States between the ages of 12 and 17 owned cell phones. At that time, they had to rely on landline telephones, in just 4 years time, that percentage climbed to about 71%. That same year,2008, about 77% of adults owned a mobile phone, in the year 2013, 91% of adults in the United States owned a mobile phone

9.
Rotary dial
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A rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a call to transmit the destination telephone number to a telephone exchange. When released at the stop, the wheel returns to its home position by spring action at a speed regulated by a governor device. Each of the ten digits are encoded in sequences of up to ten pulses, for this reason, the method is sometimes called decadic dialling. The first patent for a dial is due to Almon Brown Strowger as U. S. Patent 486,909, but the known form with holes in the finger wheel was not introduced until ca. Touch-tone technology primarily used a keypad in form of an array of push-buttons for dialing. From as early as 1836 onward, various suggestions and inventions of dials for sending telegraph signals were reported, after the first commercial telephone exchange was installed in 1878, the need for an automated, user-controlled method of directing a telephone call became apparent. Addressing the technical shortcomings, Almon Brown Strowger invented a dial in 1891. Most inventions involved costly, intricate mechanisms and required the user to perform complex manipulations, the original dials required complex operational sequences. A workable, albeit error-prone, system was invented by the Automatic Electric Company using three push-buttons on the telephone and these buttons represented the hundreds, tens, and single units of a telephone number. When calling the subscriber number 163, for example, the user had to push the button once, followed by six presses of the tens button. In 1896, this system was supplanted by an automatic contact-making machine, further development continued during the 1890s and the early 1900s in conjunction with improvements in switching technology. Almon Brown Strowger was the first to file a patent for a dial on December 21,1891. In the 1950s, plastic materials were introduced in dial construction, replacing metal which was heavier, despite their lack of modern features, rotary phones occasionally find special uses. They are also retained for authenticity in historic properties such as the U. S. Route 66 Blue Swallow Motel which date from an era of named exchanges, a rotary dial typically features a circular construction. The shaft that actuates the mechanical switching mechanism is driven by the finger wheel, the finger wheel may be transparent or opaque permitting the viewing of the face plate, or number plate below, either in whole, or only showing the number assignment for each finger hole. The faceplate is printed with numbers, and sometimes letters, corresponding to each finger hole, a curved device called a finger stop sits above the dial at approximately the 4 oclock position

10.
Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling
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DTMF was first developed in the Bell System in the United States, and became known under the trademark Touch-Tone for use in push-button telephones supplied to telephone customers, starting in 1963. DTMF is standardized by ITU-T Recommendation Q.23 and it is also known in the UK as MF4. The Touch-Tone system using a telephone keypad gradually replaced the use of dial and has become the industry standard for landline. Other multi-frequency systems are used for internal signaling within the telephone network, prior to the development of DTMF, telephone numbers were dialed by users with a loop-disconnect signaling, more commonly known as pulse dialing in the U. S. The exchange equipment responds to the dial pulses either directly by operating relays, the physical distance for which this type of dialing was possible was restricted by electrical distortions and was only possible on direct metallic links between end points of a line. Placing calls over longer distances required either operator assistance or provision of special subscriber trunk dialing equipment, operators used an earlier type of multi-frequency signaling. Multi-frequency signaling is a group of signaling methods that use a mixture of two pure tone sounds, various MF signaling protocols were devised by the Bell System and CCITT. This semi-automated signaling and switching proved successful in both speed and cost effectiveness, the DTMF system uses a set of eight audio frequencies transmitted in pairs to represent 16 signals, represented by the ten digits, the letters A to D, and the symbols # and *. AT&T described the product as a method for pushbutton signaling from customer stations using the transmission path. DTMF was known throughout the Bell System by the trademark Touch-Tone, the term was first used by AT&T in commerce on July 5,1960 and was introduced to the public on November 18,1963, when the first push-button telephone was made available to the public. It was a trademark by AT&T from September 4,1962 to March 13,1984. It is standardized by ITU-T Recommendation Q.23, in the UK, it is also known as MF4. Other vendors of compatible telephone equipment called the Touch-Tone feature tone dialing or DTMF, previously, terrestrial television stations used DTMF tones to control remote transmitters. The engineers had envisioned telephones being used to access computers, and they consulted with companies to determine the requirements. This led to the addition of the sign and asterisk or star keys as well as a group of keys for menu selection. Public payphones that accept credit cards use these codes to send the information from the magnetic strip. The AUTOVON telephone system of the United States Armed Forces used these signals to assert certain privilege, precedence is still a feature of military telephone networks, but using number combinations. For example, entering 93 before a number is a priority call, present-day uses of the A, B, C and D signals on telephone networks are few, and are exclusive to network control

11.
Caller ID
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Caller ID may be used by the recipient to avoid answering unwanted incoming calls by the concept of informed consent. However, it also poses problems for personal privacy, usually, the caller can disable or block the Caller ID facility, but some call capture technology can bypass a caller block. On the other hand, the possibility of caller ID spoofing may render received information unreliable, with appropriate hardware, networking and software, Caller ID can also be associated with a name of the calling telephone number. The information made available to the party may be displayed on a telephones display, on a separately attached device. However, many modems are designed and programmed to handle multiple signalling methods, the idea of CNID as a service for POTS subscribers originated from automatic number identification as a part of toll free number service in the United States. However, CNID and ANI are not the same thing, ANI was originally a term given to a system that identified the telephone number placing a call, in a non-electronic central office switch. Previous to this, the number could not be identified electronically. Caller ID is made up of two pieces of information, the calling number and the billing name where available. When a call is made from a name, this name can be passed on through a number of different methods. For example, the name may be datafilled in the originating switch. More commonly, a database is accessed by the receiving switch, if the name does not exist, then the city, State, Province, or other designation may be sent. Some of these databases may be shared among several companies, each paying every time a name is extracted and it is for this reason that mobile phone callers appear as WIRELESS CALLER, or the location where the phone number is registered. Additionally, nothing ensures that the number sent by a switch is the actual number where the call originated, as such, the telephone switch, and therefore the operating entity, must also be trusted to provide secure authentication. The displayed caller ID also depends on the equipment originating the call, if the call originates on a POTS line, then caller ID is provided by the service providers local switch. Since the network does not connect the caller to the callee until the phone is answered, most service providers however, allow the caller to block caller ID presentation through the vertical service code *67. A call placed behind a branch exchange has more options. In the typical telephony environment, a PBX connects to the service provider through Primary Rate Interface trunks. Generally, although not absolutely, the service provider simply passes whatever calling line ID appears on those PRI access trunks transparently across the Public Switched Telephone Network and this opens up the opportunity for the PBX administrator to program whatever number they choose in their external phone number fields

12.
General Services Administration
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The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers and has an operating budget of roughly $26.3 billion. GSA oversees $66 billion of procurement annually and it contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U. S. federal property, divided chiefly among 8,300 owned and leased buildings and a 210,000 vehicle motor pool. GSAs business lines include the Federal Acquisition Service, the Public Buildings Service, the GSA is member of the Procurement G6, an informal group leading the use of framework agreements and e-procurement instruments in public procurement. In 1947 President Harry Truman asked former President Herbert Hoover to lead what became known as the Hoover Commission to make recommendations to reorganize the operations of the federal government, one of the recommendations of the commission was the establishment of an Office of the General Services. This proposed office would combine the responsibilities of the following organizations, General Jess Larson, Administrator of the War Assets Administration, was named GSAs first Administrator. The first job awaiting Administrator Larson and the newly formed GSA was a renovation of the White House. The structure had fallen into such a state of disrepair by 1949 that one inspector of the time said the structure was standing “purely from habit. Everything, except the four walls without a roof, was stripped down. GSA completed the renovation in 1952, GSA headquarters, located at Eighteenth and F Streets, NW, was U. S. General Services Administration Building listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as Interior Department Offices, in 1960, GSA created the Federal Telecommunications System, a government-wide intercity telephone system. In 1970, the Nixon administration created the Consumer Product Information Coordinating Center, the Federal Buildings Fund was initiated in 1974, which allowed the GSA to issue rent bills to federal agencies. In 1972, the GSA established the Automated Data and Telecommunications Service, in 1973, the GSA created the Office of Federal Management Policy. GSA’s Office of Acquisition Policy centralized procurement policy in 1978, in 1984, GSA introduced the federal government to the use of charge cards, known as the GMA SmartPay system. The National Archives and Records Administration was spun off into an independent agency in 1985, the same year, the GSA began to provide governmentwide policy oversight and guidance for federal real property management as a result of an Executive Order signed by President Ronald Reagan. In 2003, the Federal Protective Service was moved to the Department of Homeland Security, in 2005, GSA reorganized to merge the Federal Supply Service and Federal Technology Service business lines into the Federal Acquisition Service. On April 3,2009, President Barack Obama nominated Martha N. Johnson to serve as the GSA Administrator, after a 9-month delay, the United States Senate confirmed her nomination on February 4,2010. In July 1991, GSA contractors began the excavation of what is now the Ted Weiss Federal Building in New York City, when initial excavation disturbed burials, destroying skeletons and artifacts, GSA sent archaeologists to excavate—but hid their findings from the public